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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

6.15.10 - Down the Homestretch: Part 2

The ENT came by around 5 this evening to take a look at Liam's airway to make sure nothing else is going on that we don't know about. Good news is, there is no new news. ENT said that the right vocal chord is still not moving at all, which we knew, but nothing else other than some slight swelling, but nothing out of the ordinary or of too much concern for his type of trauma.

We did switch Liam to soy formula this morning, and he seems to be tolerating it well. He does sound a little less congested when he is asleep, but when he is sitting up or moving around a lot, the congestion comes back. So I'm not sure if it is the milk, but maybe the soy is helping some...? The ENT also checked for reflux, which he did not see evidence of.

The cardiologist on call this week, Dr. Thomas, did come by to check on things and let us know how the echo looked. He said it looks good, but Liam's right side of his heart is a little weak. He said this is very normal after his type of surgery and isn's a concern right now, but if it looks this way in a couple months, then we might have a problem. We knew that Liam still has a very small hole between the left and right atrium in the upper chamber of his heart, and the surgeon leaves this hole open to act almost like a blow off valve to keep strain off the heart when necessary. Well, since Liam's heart is weak, sometimes the unoxygenated blood just crosses through that small top hole instead of being "pumped" down to the lower ventricle. This causes some of the deoxygenated blood to be pumped out to the body with the oxygenated blood. Dr. Thomas said this can cause small desats every so often...which may or may not be causing Liam's issue right now.

As far as going home, not quite sure. I talk to the Staff Doc today and he said he would rather not send us home on oxygen. So far, Liam has slid into the upper 80's a few times since I've been writing...we shall see how the rest of the night goes, and what tomorrow holds.